Patterns, 在 and 一个+noun

[boulanren]

大家好

 

Hello everyone. It is my first post here. I would like to ask you 2 questions about grammar rules which I can't really get:

 

1. A native-speaker translated a sentence for me where he used "on Thursday" = "在星期死“ or at 18.00 “在6.30”。 I have never ever seen "zai" before telling about time or days of the week. The chinese person told me that they use both ways, but I can't see any information on that matter in the Internet.

2.As there is this nice book "Common Chinese Patterns 300" - do those patterns have a specific name in terms of grammar? Can I find more of them somewhere? It is the only book I've come across that is related with that matter.

3.Is there a specific rule when you add "的“ to adjectives? I have observed that almost every adjective is followed by 的, even in dictionaries?.

 

Thank you so much for your kind answers.

Paweł.

[Shelley]

Hello and welcome, the questions you ask are good ones and normal for a beginner.

 

Apart from the "Common Chinese Patterns 300"  book do you use anything else? I would suggest you have a look at the Chinese Grammar wiki here https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/

 

This is a very good grammar resource and should answer your questions.

 

In your other post you ask how long would it take to get used to the sounds of chinese, well I would have to say that depends on a lot. How much time you spending listening and your skill in listening. It is different for different people, don't worry too much about it, as long as you do what you can well, it will happen.

 

 

 

 

[boulanren]

I know the website you put the link to, but I can't find any answer to my questions there...

[Shelley]

Well here is a link the search results page for 在   https://resources.allsetlearning.com/gramwiki/?search=zai&fulltext=Search

 

It has several entries explaining the different uses.

 

And these are the results for 的 https://resources.allsetlearning.com/gramwiki/?title=Special%3ASearch&profile=default&search=de&fulltext=Search

 

I am sure you should find what you need here.

[boulanren]

Dear Shelley,

 

i know this grammar website very well and it says nothing about using „zai” with time as well as adding „de” after adjectives. I am rather a person who seeks a lot and that is Why I decided to look for explainations here.

[edelweis]

https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Modifying_nouns_with_adjective_%2B_"de"

If this does not match your "de" question, please provide an example of what you mean.

[boulanren]

That’s it. Must have miss that one, sorry. 

 

What about my question about patterns from that detailed obok and „zai” with time structure?

[Michaelyus]

在 + 星期X is certainly very common at least in the written language. But it does come across as quite 书面 to me, and there are several circumstances where it does feel like a calque from English. In colloquial speech though I generally don't use 在 + 星期X very much, far less than just 星期X.

[edelweis]

As to the Common Chinese Patterns book, as far as I can tell the habit is to call them patterns or sentence structures (句型) and the components of the pattern are called 关联词 but I don't know the English word for this.

Any Chinese textbook will teach you the basic ones, like 虽然...但是 or 是...的.